Snow Day
by EireannisInnocent
Summary: AU MultiSaku: For Vesper-chan's December Oneshot Contest. A simple snow day is goes from casual date to snow war to fight for a bed. And it's all seemingly planned...


Snow Day

"Now we bring you a weather forecast for the day. The temperatures today will be perfect conditions for snow, which will stay around or below zero, so remember to bundle up if you plan to go out to prevent frostbite. Later today we might see strong winds and heavy snow meeting the requirements for a blizzard. Anyway we all have a guarantee for a white Christmas this year. Now to John with the recent news and how to tell if your child…"

In a small apartment, a young pink-haired woman sat on her couch, watching TV. She hugged her legs under her fuzzy blue blanket and gazed blankly at the television. Her emotionless face was not caused by any traumatic experiences of her past around Christmas time but simply because she had nothing to do for Christmas.

Sakura Haruno, the said woman, had been given a break from her work at a local veterinarian's clinic and had no plans for the holidays except to enjoy spending time with her pet cat, Mittens, who was hidden in the blanket with her. Her friends would obviously be busy with their families at this time of year and wouldn't have any time to spare with her. She was perfectly content to stay at home during the season of tinnabulation and gifts.

The sound of purring could be heard from beside me, where my black and white cat lay curled underneath the blankets with me as I absentmindedly petted him. I had rescued him as a kitten before he could be sent to a shelter by the vet's office, and he had never left my side since. He was an odd fur ball with extra toes on each paw granting him the status of a Hemmingway cat. He demanded attention and I gave it to him willingly, he was also my only other housemate.

A knock at the door interrupted my musings, and I quickly got up to answer it with Mittens at my heels. He seemed a little angered by the loss of attention but got over it immediately unlike some people I know.

I opened the door to find a blond friend of mine standing there in the cold.

"Hi Naruto, what are you doing here?" I asked.

"Well Sakura… I came to ask you for a date." He bluntly responded. His answer too quick to be truthful.

"Naruto, I know you're lying, you've never been this straight-forward in any of your previous date requests. I'm already suspicious of what you have planned behind my back, heck I wouldn't be surprised if you had somehow roped Sasuke into this. I'm not going." I prepared to close the door on him before he burst out.

"But Sakura-chan!" He only used that name when he was puling. "It's the season of Christmas! You're supposed to be happy and joyful! You've never let yourself have any fun!"

"Naruto, if you haven't noticed, I am content being a workaholic. I do not care to frolic around in the snow when it is freezing outside like this!"

"But Sakura!-"

The door slamming in his face had immediately cut him off. I didn't mean to be cruel like that but I really didn't feel like being dragged around town by Naruto in freezing cold weather. Especially when it would snow later on.

We had our little outings together, and occasionally I would let myself have fun. Naruto and I, and others from my college classes would have outings together. Ino would always tease me afterwards about how I should settle down with one of them, but I had no particular favorite they were all of my close and trusted male friends and I refused to do anything that would hurt any of them.

Sasuke and Itachi were brothers, Itachi was a few years older then me but it wasn't much. They were heirs to the Uchiha business and would eventually settle down with an ideal wife to show off to the world. I know they wouldn't want to do that, to simply marry a trophy wife, but it was how they were supposed to act. Sasuke was Naruto's rival in everything from grades to work. Itachi preferred to taunt his little brother and watch how he reacted, but they would both seem to change around me.

Sasori was quiet and impatient, he preferred the sidelines except when it involved the concept of art, and then he would actively fight in the war. Deidara would commonly join in the argument with Sasori over who had the better art. Sasori painted and created puppets while Deidara preferred explosive sculptures. It wasn't completely obvious to others but they were actually good friends. They had even started a business together.

Sai and Gaara were silent loners, Sai more so than Gaara. Gaara was silent but in a warm kind of way, Sai on the other hand lacked the warmth and I was unsure to how he felt about things other than his drawings. Gaara was kind, defensive and usually the one to calm Naruto down when he would start to get too excited. Gaara was able to handle this with equanimity. Sai would rather prefer to insult Naruto and watch him get angry and flustered by an insult he couldn't counter.

Finally Naruto was an energetic blonde who ran a restaurant with his godfather, Jiraiya. I could see how Naruto was occasionally influenced by Jiraiya's writings; the old man was a perverted and famous author for crying out loud! But Naruto still wasn't interested in his godfather's novels to worship the ground Jiraiya walked on like other men I've seen.

Another rapid knock could be heard. I silently wished Naruto could stop being stubborn for one single day, because I knew he could actually continue to knock for the next few hours until sundown. Believe me, he had done it before.

I opened the door with a sigh as Naruto continued to ramble on about what he would do if I would simply come with him.

"Fine! I go with you! But it's not a date, Naruto! Let me just get my bag." I turned to go back inside my small apartment room to grab a small waterproofed backpack filled with necessities such as an extra change of clothing and other sorts of things. With Naruto you could never predict what he would do for an outing. He had once tossed me into a lake because I refused to change into a swimsuit because it was a two-piece. I had landed in the lake safely with the other guys and Naruto had done it with good intentions but I had walked around in wet clothing for the rest of the day.

I walked back outside with my bag on my back and locked the door behind me, making sure Mittens hadn't gotten out. I looked around and saw Naruto in his heavy signature orange and black jacket and jeans.

"Sakura, do you always carry that backpack? I've never seen you without it." Naruto asked as we began to walk down the road, since Naruto said where we were going wasn't far.

"You only see me with it all the time because that's the only time I'll wear this. Otherwise with any of the other guys, I can just depend on whatever is in my pockets, but with you, I must carry the equivalent of a carry-on bag and waterproof it."

"Sorry… Oh look, here's the place!" Naruto excitedly exclaimed.

I looked up and expected to see some sort of ramen shop or maybe his godfather's restaurant. But instead, there was a cozy looking café that looked like somewhere nice to stop in this sort of weather.

We entered and were immediately met with the smells of warm cinnamon, whipped cream, mint and caffeine. It seemed to be a bit too romantic for my tastes but the coffee was good. We held a small conversation over what we had been doing for the last few days and not much else besides drinking our tea and coffee.

"So Sakura, you know the little park down the street?"

"Yeah, the one we used to go to when we were little to fight in snow wars with the other guys?"

"Yeah, that's the one. I was thinking, that maybe we could go and visit it for old times sake?"

"Okay."

The suspicion about his earlier actions had disappeared from my mind. He seemed to have put some actual effort and planning into this outing and it was turning out to be great. He had left out his usual ramen slurping and had brought me somewhere nice but not upscale. It was nice for a change and it certainly helped perk up my outlook for the day.

We arrived sometime later at the park, which had started to be coated with a light dusting of snow that had started falling earlier while we were still in the café. The new snow refreshed the whiteness of the earlier, and slightly older snow. The older snow was built up in rather large snowdrifts from last night and was slowly growing from the new snow falling now.

"This would be great for a snow ball fight right now, wouldn't it Naruto? Maybe even a full out snow war if we had the others here…" I didn't hear a response. "Naruto?"

A small snowball knocked my hat off my head and I turned around to see a snickering Naruto. I quickly picked up a clump of snow and formed it into a much larger snowball than Naruto's previous one, then threw it. It hit its mark, smack dab in the middle of Naruto's face. As Naruto blinked the snow from his eyes he yelled to me the usual warning that secretly meant a snow fight was beginning.

"No head shots with big snowballs."

"Aw, but that takes away all the fun…" I whined.

"Your so mean to me, Sakura."

"Yeah right!" I yelled back before I lobbed a big snowball towards Naruto again.

The small snowball fight began. It wasn't very difficult to land hits on either of us because we handed given each other the time to create a snow fort of any kind but the snow drifts and trees were good enough.

"Time out!" Naruto yelled. "Why don't we go into the forest? It would make this more of a challenge. You know, that clearing we used to play in? That one."

"Okay!" I yelled from across the playground and began to follow Naruto in. Naruto suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to me. Which in turn caused me to run into him face first.

"Hey, Sakura. Stay right here. I've got to go check something out first."

The fact that he had to go and check something left me worried but much more suspicious. I could handle myself since I had taken multiple self-defense classes. I had also spent summer afternoons tackling the men who were both my friends and the main members of the school's sports and martial arts teams. The suspicion came from the idea that he had revealed he had to go check on something, something that had been here before we had gotten here because he had spent all his time with me. Something had been planned, and I didn't know what it was.

"Okay." I had simply brushed the suspicion off as something simple like a pre-made snow fort to give him an early advantage and I wouldn't be bothered if he had. I liked challenges and this could be one of them.

"But stay right here. I might not be able to find you again if you don't."

That single sentence sounded reasonable because once Naruto left I could be given the chance to spring a small surprise of my own. I pulled out my cell phone from my bag and quickly dialed Itachi's number. The cell phone had been a gift from Itachi and Sasuke, and I believed if they weren't too busy with the business, their family was never a Christmas-y type, they would make wonderfully unfair backup against Naruto. Maybe we could split up into teams and actually have a bigger snow war.

The dial tone rang and I could hear it ring from my end of the phone. 5 rings later and it was answered.

"Sakura?" Asked Itachi from the other end of the line. He sounded out of breath as if he had been working out or running laps.

"Hi Itachi. Are you all right? You sound as if you've been working out."

"Yes I'm fine. I've just finished running for what feels like more than a mile, but was only about half. It's the temperature."

"Itachi! You shouldn't be running outside in this weather! You can get sick!"

"So what are you doing outside then, Sakura?"

"Waiting for Naruto to come back."

"He left a lady on his date, to wait for him? Where is he in the bathroom?" Itachi asked jokingly.

"He told me to wait here. He's probably trying to get some sort of advantage on me so I called you hoping to get back at him with you and Sasuke. We just entered the forest at the park we all used to go to and Naruto and I were heading for the clearing in the center."

Itachi was silent for a moment as if considering something. I could hear off in the background someone's familiar voice yelling, "Itachi are you on the phone? This is no time to be talking on your phone!"

"One moment." Itachi told me as he probably held the phone away from his ear to talk to ever had yelled at him.

I suddenly recognized the voice it was Deidara's! Deidara was usually with Sasori so it was easy to assume Itachi was with the both of them. When Itachi got back on the line I asked him the question.

"Was that Deidara?"

"Yes." Itachi responded calmly.

"Are you in some sort of trouble?"

"No. But I'd like to ask you to stay where you are."

"Why?"

"Because we're kidnapping you."

"Wha-"

A hand quickly covered my mouth and prevented me from finishing my sentence.

"Shh! Naruto could hear you."

It was Deidara. He quickly removed his hand from my mouth as I threatened to bite him with it.

"What is going on here?" I whispered so angrily and fast that it sounded like a hiss.

"Isn't it obvious? Naruto set you up to join his team in the snow war. He knew you wouldn't come out of your "Apartment of Workaholic-ness" unless he made you think it was something normal. I've got to give it to him; he's actually proved to us how he managed to graduate. But now we're stealing you from him so he doesn't have us outnumbered."

"How many people are in on this?"

"Naruto, Sasuke, Sasori, that gay Sai, Gaara, Itachi, you and I."

"Whose team are we on?"

"We're on Itachi's team with Sasori. Naruto's got Sai, Sasuke and Gaara."

Deidara continued to drag me through the forest to our base and from we previously were we could hear Naruto yell, "They got Sakura!" We eventually got to where the small fort was built. It was extremely funny to see Sasori up in a tree scanning for targets and Itachi on the ground sitting casually on a stump with huge snowballs next to him.

It was hilarious to see the two of the most serious and powerful businessmen in the world prepared to throw snowballs like children.

"Fire!" Yelled Naruto from across the clearing and small snowballs began to pelt the fort causing snow to fall everywhere.

Sasori easily sniped off Naruto as he ran across the clearing screaming like a ninny. Itachi skillfully threw snowballs like the shuriken he has been trained to throw and each hit Naruto, Sasuke, Gaara and Sai hard in the face.

"Hey, we said no head shots!"

It was on, now.

"Hey, Sakura, have any ideas?"

"Yes." I responded to Deidara's question with an evil grin. I took a particularly heavy snowball and used the centrifugal force from spinning around to have it fly far off and knock down a large part of their snow fort's wall.

Our snow fight lasted until later in the day when the temperatures began dropping even more and it was getting dark. We were all tired and freezing so we were going to head home.

"Hey Sakura are you heading home?" Asked Sasuke.

"Yeah, I'm tired."

"The rest of us have decided that they're staying over at our house, are you going to come?"

"No thanks. I can walk home from here and I can handle anything that comes my way."

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us? It going to be even colder than it is now later on and it will feel even colder with the wind chill." Added Naruto.

"I'm fine you guys." Then a small sneeze just had to come out and entirely ruin my argument.

Suddenly Sasori and Deidara had grabbed me by the arms and rushed me to Itachi's car. Everyone else piled into their cars and drove off toward the Uchiha _mansion_ despite my protests that it had only been my allergies. Sai had grabbed my bag and carried it in for me while Gaara carried me in. I had, by then, given up upon any method of protest that would fail to reach through to them.

They all filed off into a large upstairs living room with a fireplace. Servants that worked to serve their "masters" had already lighted the flame, I didn't like the term but they didn't seem to mind it being used.

We all laid out on futons that had been laid out for us in front of the fire. The guys had simply changed into a cotton t-shirt and their boxers which they had on earlier. My pajamas were similar if not less revealing then theirs. Instead of boxers I wore a borrowed pair of shorts, despite my repeated insistence that I had a change of clothing in my bag.

As I had come out of the bathroom I was meet with a large collection of stares. I had never worn shorts or skirts during the summertime, nor had I ever worn a swimsuit in front of them without being covered up by something longer. I ignored them all and flopped down on a seemingly empty futon. It turned out I had flopped down on top of Sasori, who had already fallen asleep and I hadn't seen him.

"Sorry!" I said hurriedly as I jumped up and sat down on a patch of floor that I made sure was empty before sitting down.

"It's fine Sakura. You didn't need to move." Replied Sasori casually.

I quietly blushed before scrambling over to my bag, missing all the glares that were immediately directed towards Sasori while my back was turned. I dragged it over to a futon near the fire and sat down. I lay down and felt someone slide in next to me, it turned out to be Gaara. I rolled over onto another futon while muttering "Sorry."

In the next futon there was Sasuke. Already laid out and staring with an unrecognizable emotion in his eyes, I moved to another area to find Naruto in his shirt and boxers. I got up and dragged my bag to yet another futon to find Sai. I stood up and realized there were only 7 futons laid out.

"Where am _I_ supposed to sleep?"

"With us."

"Where?" I yelled exasperated as I pointed at the fact there were only 7 futons.

My bag began to rustle and I opened it to find my cat, Mittens, pop out of it. I didn't really wonder how long he had been in there but pulled him out and hugged him for support.

"Just anywhere Sakura." Deidara pulled my leg to pull me down on top of him. "Even here." He added indicating an open invitation to sleep on him.

My blush immediately flared up again and I crawled away only to be dragged into Itachi's lap and have his head rest on my shoulder. I tried to escape only to have Mittens drop his fluffy butt into my lap which practically settled where I would stay because when Mittens decided to sit somewhere that was where he would sit. He didn't have extra claws on each paw for nothing.

"Hey Itachi! The idea was no one gets to hog ugly." Stated Sai using his patented nickname for me.

"And I have no say in my sleeping arrangements? I'll have to fix that." I said as I glared at Sai and got up. Mittens was angry as heck someone had moved him from him favorite spot and someone was about to learn that hell hath no fury like an angry Hemmingway cat. I dropped Mittens in Sai's lap and watched the chaos.

Sai tried to get the angry cat away from him and it turns out, Mittens got even angrier. As this happened I stole Sai's futon and dragged it far away from the other guys.

"Sakura get your psycho cat off of me!" Yelled Sai as Mittens dangled from his boxers, dangerously close to his family jewels.

I gave a small whistle and Mittens came running back to me. I laid down on the futon with Mittens purring on my chest as I gave him a scratch behind the ear for a good job.

All the other guys were staring at me, shocked. I ignored them and quickly fell asleep, leaving Sai writhing in pain.

~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~

I later woke up to get a drink of water, only to find multiple futons and men surrounded me. Sasuke slept above my head, Naruto and Gaara to the left and right of my head and below Sasuke. Sasori and Deidara slept beneath them but parallel to me as they each hugged a part of my torso I'd rather not explain but was completely expected. Sai simply slept on my leg, my upper thigh to be exact. Mittens was on an armchair I hadn't noticed earlier, he was obviously upset his favorite spots to sleep where taken up by other people.

Before I fell asleep again, I realized with a laugh, by morning he will have spayed their faces and clothes for revenge.

~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~

**Crappiest oneshot ever. To think I am going to submit this is in Vesper-chan's oneshot contest is a completely insane decision. But I am doing it anyway.**

**Please excuse any spelling errors or grammar I wrote this at various times and haven't slept well recently…**

**Words used: Tintinnabulation, Equanimity, Pule, and Flame **

**Number of Words: 3,741**

**Pages: 9**


End file.
